


Dover Beach

by MistressOfMalplaquet



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Jughead's inner struggle, Meta, trying to figure out 2x04, what the HELL Jughead, why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 00:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12737175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressOfMalplaquet/pseuds/MistressOfMalplaquet
Summary: Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another...





	Dover Beach

He never meant for it to happen the way they did. Or, that’s not quite true: Jughead finds he's in the middle of being cold to Betty – as bad as or worse than Archie ever was – before he even realizes what he’s doing.

He’s busy. There’s got a lot going on, and he needs to concentrate on survival, an instinct forced into him since he was ten. _Go to Southside High, keep your head down. Don’t attract attention or more trouble. Just make it through._

Jughead feels those plans explode with the first punch in a deserted school after hours. When the Ghoulies jump him, he realizes he’s not going to survive the next few months unless he takes action. If he doesn’t, he’ll end up in jail or worse. Cold, metallic fear freezes his throat, and his need to stay alive and sane takes over.

Jughead knows he has no choice, and he’s going to join a biker gang whether he wants to or not.

#

Southside High isn’t too terrible at first. Jughead likes Mr. Phillips’s class, and at least he doesn’t stick out so much in his new school. At Riverdale High, he tended to be a black inkblot in the middle of all that pastel hilarity.

And then there's Toni. She’s his guide, his photographer, his friend. She looks at him with acceptance, never questions or disapproves what he does.

So, yeah. He’s doing okay.

#

The sun rises in the east, paper burns at 451 Fahrenheit, and Jughead Jones loves Betty Cooper. These things are true. He’s always loved her, and the fact that she actually loves him back is an amazing, wonderful, magical mystery. In his heart of hearts, he still can’t quite believe it.

Betty’s always there for him, working her butt off to help her broken boyfriend. When Jughead declares he can’t take on anything else, immediately she responds Of course not, he needs to concentrate on his father right now.

Before he can blink, she’s planning to get FP out of jail – and damn if it doesn’t work. They watch the Pussycats together that night at Pops, Betty nestled in his arms, and in the lights of the old diner she glows like an actress from a Hitchcock movie.

She’s… not the kind of girl you admit to being a Serpent to. “Don’t tell Betty,” Jughead once begged Archie about that tiny broom closet, and that was nothing compared to the fix that’s ensnared him now.

Part of Jughead’s survival depends on having Betty around. If she’s not there, he’ll fall apart. Later he’ll find a way to dial it back, he thinks, he’ll make her understand. He will fix it, he will survive.

Survive. It’s what Jughead Jones does.

And as Southside High becomes his new normal, it’s almost _difficult_ for him to see Betty. When she shows up at the trailer for breakfast, he’s exhausted, and the last thing he wants is to be reminded of Riverdale and of what he’s lost _. I’m in the zone,_ he wants to tell her, _and maybe you could just give me a little space so I can figure this out, because if you’re around all I can concentrate on is your green eyes and continuing where we left off on the kitchen counter._

When he and Toni are in the middle of a conversation and Betty calls, it’s the last straw. _I have to do this,_ he thinks, _and Betty’s presence is making it hard to forget my past._ And so he turns the phone over and ignores her call.

He ignores her.

Later, he’ll realize that was the moment he lost it all.

#

Jughead has a clean slate, since Southside High either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about his checkered past in the Riverdale school system. He’s decided to build on that by actually doing homework, although he doesn’t want to do too much.

Just enough to get decent grades, not enough to stand out.

He rereads Fahrenheit 451, enjoying the effortless prose and how the main character develops. It’s not his favorite Bradbury book. That would have to be The Autumn People, a collection which terrified Jughead and Betty when they read it together in secret one summer. Jughead remembers dropping a flashlight when they got to the end of “The Coffin”, and they both screamed at the sudden darkness in their tent. She snuggled up to him, skinny arms wrapped firmly around his waist, and firmly ignored his demands to Gerroff me, Cooper, fergoshsakes.

In that moment he started to fall for her.

The memory makes him smile. He thinks about Betty and how simple it all was in their little tent.

Still grinning, he turns a page and starts the chapter in which Guy Montag reads Dover Beach to his wife. _Come to the window,_ Jughead reads, _sweet is the night air!_

The line evokes Betty opening the sash so he could climb inside her room and kiss her for the first time. It had been an amazing moment, one he never really thought would happen.

Jughead still believes on a deep and primitive level that he stole Betty away from her destined storyline. That he doesn’t deserve her. That she’s meant to be with … someone else. That one day she will wise up and leave him with a broken heart.

_Ah, love, let us be true_

_To one another! For the world, which seems_

_To lie before us like a land of dreams,_

_So various, so beautiful, so new,_

_Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light…_

The book, soft with age, drops out of his hands onto FP’s old table. Jughead has read those lines before without really understanding them, but they suddenly strike him as vitally important to his very soul. He’s spent the past few days concentrating on Southside and his own survival. In that struggle he’s neglected Betty: not taking her calls, being short with her when she stops by, helping Toni decode that stupid message instead of involving his girlfriend.

Betty asked him to stay at Riverdale when he visited the student lounge. At the time his answer had been, ‘I’ll be fine.’ It now occurs to him, too late, that maybe _she_ might not have been so fine.

What if Betty thinks Jughead’s pulling away? What if – right now- another guy is asking her out? What if she has considered breaking up?

Filled with sudden panic, he fumbles his phone out of one pocket and punches her contact. The phone rings, but no one answers. Inside the old trailer, Jughead’s breath whistles, making the dust spin in a ray of late sunlight.

His fingers shake as he types in a message:

_Hey Betts, sorry I’ve been so busy. Meet me at Pops tomorrow?_

An eternity passes before the text bubbles appear on his screen. They disappear, reappear as if she’s thinking about what to respond. Finally, her response pops up:

_Great, can’t wait to see you. 4:00 good?_

Relief restarts his heart like the kiss from a defibrillator, and he sends her a YES in all caps.

#

When he sees her in the booth, Jughead feels it’s all going to be okay after all. He says her name, Betty Cooper, and the sight of her beautiful smile makes him shaky with desire.

No one would kiss like that if they weren’t in love. Betty clings to him, lips parting just a bit so he can lick into her.

But she tastes like salt, and fear chills his chest as they sit down on opposite sides of the booth. At some point Betty has been crying. Why? Has she found out about the Serpents?

That thought makes him lie when she asks about his bandaged thumb. And as he throws out the wild, hopeless plan of leaving town on his motorcycle together, Jughead watches in terror as a tear rolls down Betty’s cheek.

Something is terribly wrong, and with horror Jughead tries to banish the thought that they might have just shared their last kiss.

 

_And we are here as on a darkling plain_

_Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,_

_Where ignorant armies clash by night._

 

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been struggling with episode 2x04 for a while now. Even the Kiss didn’t bug me as much as Jughead’s refusing his girlfriend’s phone call, practically ignoring her in his trailer before school. At least the Jones / Topaz embrace had a bit of logic, since he’d been beaten down and thought Betty had broken up with him.  
> But 2x04 just didn’t make sense. Jughead always appreciated Betty – it was what made me love their relationship so much. I couldn’t figure out why he would change so much and so quickly, and that kept me awake night after night.  
> And why would he act so love-struck again when they see each other in Pops before everything falls apart?  
> In order to figure out that characterization and give myself some peace, I had to crawl inside Jughead’s head. There were several clues, and I had to become a bit of a sleuth (like Betty) to figure them out.  
> One clue, I thought, was the books Jughead chose to bring to his closet bedroom under the stairs. He couldn’t carry much in his backpack when the Drive-In closed, so the ones he did bring must have been important.  
> I first looked at Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The description of Huck is extremely interesting: “He has been brought up by his father, the town drunk, and has a difficult time fitting into society.”  
> Next is Metamorphasis by Kafka. This novel’s premise is truly terrifying, as the main character becomes a huge bug and cannot reenter society. Wounded by his father, only music played by his sister can comfort him.  
> The second season begins with references to Fahrenheit 451, which might have been another key to Jug’s inner process. For me, the most important part was Dover Beach – the poem that Guy Montag reads to his wife and her friend.  
> Those thoughts led to this one-shot, which is more meta than anything. I’d love to hear your opinions as well.
> 
> And hit me up [on Tumblr](https://mistressofmalplaquet.tumblr.com/) if you want to cry about beanies and ponytails together.


End file.
